My Story
Beginnings with Web Development
I became interested in web development in 2004, when I created a portfolio website as part of a class assignment in my doctoral program in Spanish. At that time, I had no knowledge of coding whatsoever. In fact, I utilized Dreamweaver's graphical user interface to complete the project without writing a single line of code.
The following year, I volunteered to create the website for the department's annual graduate student symposium, and the year after that I became the webmaster for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. During the three years that I served in this capacity, I taught myself the basics of HTML, CSS, a server-side language called CFML, or ColdFusion, and the database language SQL.
Switching Careers and Becoming Politically Active
In 2016, after having taught college-level Spanish for over ten years, I decided to return to web development with the goal of making it a career. To reach this objective, I began by completing Udacity's Intro to Programming Nanodegree. Next, in 2018, I completed Udacity's Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree after earning a full scholarship through the Grow With Google Initiative. During the program I won the student story competition and earned another scholarship to the React Nanodegree program, which I completed in June of 2019.
At the same time that I was completing my career change, I was becoming active politically. In 2016, I got involved in the movement that sprang up around the presidential candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders, volunteering to make phone calls to voters and engaging with fellow campaign volunteers. After the election, I remained politically active, volunteering for organizations such as Justice Democrats. More recently, I volunteered for Sanders' 2020 bid as both a web developer and a Spanish call team volunteer.
The Path Forward: Fusing Web Development with Political Activism
The ideas behind Senator Sanders' leftist platform are supported by the majority of the country, and the democratic party has begun to adopt them. I plan to continue contributing to tech projects that help to make this platform a reality in the coming years. In the uncertain and perilous times in which we live, it is incumbent upon all of us to become as involved as we can in the political process to help make the country a more just, healthy, and equitable place.